The Christmas lights were officially turned on tonight. They even had a stage show with fireworks threatening to set the canopy on fire, a snow machine spewing out snow over the crowd (I wonder what would have happened if it had started actually snowing?) , various local performing groups (of, ahem, varying degrees of talent but all very enthusiastic), and an (former?) X Factor contestant. The radio station sent extremely enthused deejays. People yelled things like “Hello Cambridgeshire!” at the crowd thronging the square. Two buses of people were whooping it up on top of two red double decker buses.

The mayor showed up in red robes and gold chain, topped off with medievally looking floppy hat, and they lit up the tree, which was actually rather anti-climactic after all the fireworks and things. …more

Okay, I’ll admit that tiling in the kitchen, even on the counters, can be very attractive. But only so long as the grout stays nice. If you don’t wipe it down after every use, if it wasn’t epoxy grout in the first place, if you live with (or are) a caffeine fiend who can’t be[...]

Well, I have been a busy bee, if you’ll pardon the school-marmish expression. The US shipment finally arrived, which meant that I spent the next few weeks unpacking. I’ve got it more or less down to some clutter that still needs a home, a pile of broken down boxes in the dining room, and[...]

What I’m working on right now is getting paint off the tiles in the bathroom, in the long process of getting ready to paint, which is taking far longer than the actual painting job will. We have a decorative frieze of tiles at the top of the tiles on the lower half of the walls. [...][...]

The Maas polishes finally arrived! They’d been backordered, and the Maas UK office very kindly refunded my postage fee for the delay. But I was very happy to see them, and began the grand brass cleanup immediately. Knobs and pulls first! The knobs and pulls on the kitchen cabinets, along with [...]

Phew, well, thanks to a courier service who lives up to the malign reputation of courier services, we missed being able to put one of J’s dearest friends in a real bed. :( The poor thing ended up on an air mattress. I was terribly disappointed. I hope she wasn’t too disappointed. However[...]